conferred on the gentlemen of the embassy; and the limited resources of Tehran were employed to the utmost extent in order to increase the good-humour of the representative of the Czar.
That representative was a gentleman of an honourable and upright disposition, and he was fully determined to uphold the dignity of, and to exact the rights due to, his imperial master. He was, perhaps, of too unbending a character to have qualified him for being a suitable representative to such a court as that of Persia; but if this were a fault with which he might have been charged, he paid a heavy penalty for his firmness. It is said that the fact of his Cossacks being often seen in a state of intoxication in the streets of Tehran, raised a feeling of disgust against the Russians in the minds of the people of the Persian capital, and that this was increased by the refusal of the Minister to grant redress in the case of some complaints against the conduct of his followers which were brought to his notice. But any discontent which may have existed was not permitted to display itself openly; and the Minister had obtained from the Shah his audience of leave, and was on the point of setting out on his return to Tabreez, when Yakoob Khan, the second chief eunuch of the royal harem, came to the house of the Imperial Mission, and claimed protection, on the plea of his being a native of Erivan. By the treaty of Turkomanchai, he had the right to return to his native place within a specified period, which had not then expired; but M. Grebaiodoff used all the arguments that occurred to him for the purpose of persuading him to relinquish his intention of returning to his native place, pointing out that he had been long estranged
